Sex matters

Sex matters is the name of a book of discourses delivered by OSHO on the topic: From sex to superconsciousness.

Word of warning: If you don’t want your preconceived notions of anything challenged, don’t read any of OSHO’s works.

One of the things I like about OSHO is the storytelling he uses to get his points over. At the start of this book he tells a story about two monks who want to smoke in the evenings. Being monks they have to ask the abbott. One of them asks if he can smoke while meditating. The abbot says no. The other asks if he can meditate while smoking. The abbot thinks that’s a great idea.

According to OSHO, most of us are addicted to sex, primarily because we do not understand sex. We don’t see sex or sexual energy as the energy of life. We don’t even accept it as a normal, natural part of life. Just think of all the sexual taboos you know about – all those things that someone or some institution has decreed you shouldn’t be doing.

The powers of society have condemned a lot of sexual practices. Consider all the angst over same sex marriage, prostitution or pornography.

OSHO relates how he took a group of friends to a temple in Khajuraho, India, that is very popular with tourists. The outer walls of the temple, the ones you see when you approach the temple, are covered in sculptures depicting scenes from life, including a number illustrating different postures of sexual intercourse. You can see what he’s talking about at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO3N0BbxLko

Most of us, like OSHO’s friends, are mystified as to why anybody would adorn a temple in this way.This is what OSHO tells his friends:

“I told them that those who created these temples were people of great understanding. They knew that sex exists on the circumference of life and that those who were still caught up in sex had no right to enter the temple.”

Those who venture into the inner court of the temple discover that it’s a temple of God. There are no images of sex inside the temple.

When it was built, the temple was a meditation centre. To enter the inner space disciples first had to meditate on the scenes depicted on the outer walls until they fully understood sex and freed their minds from it. Only then could they enter the temple to meet God within.

OSHO reminds us that these days most of us rush into the temple with our eyes closed.

From his perspective, sex is a window into what he calls superconsciousness – that momentary feeling you get at orgasm, when the two feel as one and there are no thoughts, only throbbing energy. And this is why we’re addicted to sex – not to the act but to that momentary feeling that comes through it.

The only other way to get to that feeling, that state of consciousness, is through meditation. Lots of it.

According to OSHO, if you meditate during sex, not only do you get more of that superconsciousness, you actually reach a state of being where you no longer need the sex to get there.